Historically speaking, it's kind of a funny time to be in San Francisco. Because there is just the faintest whiff of the last days of empire here. Most people are kind of relieved about the dot com crash, because it chased out the hordes of people, the parking and housing boom that went with them and all that arrogance. But when I meet people in the high tech industry, as I did yesterday, who still have, say, their Porche Boxter, only they have removed their customized liscence plates that had said the name of the dot come company they had worked for and which had made them 40 million dollars, enabling them to buy the Porche Boxter, those people are an odd, new kind of retiree. Then of course there is still a bit of venture capitol software company start up guys, who have an idea and are counting on a 50 million dollar first round, which seems so quaint even though it was only two or three years ago that everyone out here was talking that way. I also met a guy who was a very nebbishy software engineer, who, in the course of the evening, told me about, and evenutally produced for me, a list he had on his plam pilot, of the qualities he was looking for in a mate. It was kind of heartbreaking, both in its specificity and the very fact that it was on a palm pilot, with entries like "should not be too materialistic" (prsumably a big liability in a state where the divorce allows you to take 50% of the assets and where a doughy nerd sitting on 40 million dollars might suddenly be attractive to a previously unattainable class of woman) as well as the much further down the list "should love me". Really what was most shocking about the whole experience was that another guy came up in the bar and said he also kept a list like that on his palm pilot.

One guy had a somewhat inexplicable new hobby, of making sound recordings, but not of voices, and not of, say, ocean or wind or rivers. But rather, he recorded events in their spaces, meaning he would go out to someplace, set up a mic, and that way, if you missed it, would be able to listen to the sound of space, which would be a very subtle sound indeed. To do this, he was carrying around a portable recording rig, the likes of which I had never seen before, complete with a kind of boom mic set up, only instead of what they use for film, he had devised his own boom, with a kind of dome, built to simulate the shape of a human head, and two mics, about where the ears would be, which he felt would ideally create stereo separation. I tried to ask him why stereo was an issue, for the work he was doing, because recordings of, for instance, lanterns swinging in the breeze, is not what I would think sounds best in stereo. But he was into it, and there is no harm in that.

The night before we had a sort of extravaganza dinner Friday night with 9 guests. The highlight of that evening was, without question, a baby named Ali. She was very outgoing and sure of herself, even though she was only 2, and kind of worked the room. Ali is actually my cousin Gitte's daughter, which I guess makes her something to me, though I'm not sure what. Cousin once removed? Anyway, a good time was had by all, and we ate cream puffs with choclate sauce, which is my first experience eating cream puffs.